The Black Marker
The Black Marker is an alien artifact discovered on Earth by the Earth Government in 2214. It was then hidden to discourage alien belief, yet was brought to public knowledge by Michael Altman, who had been contracted to research the marker 200 years prior to Isaac Clarke's arrival on the [[USG Ishimura|USG Ishimura]]. Overview The Black Marker was initially found by Michael Altman and a team of researchers in the asteroid impact crater off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. It was thereafter concluded that the Marker landed on Earth along with an asteroid that may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs millions of years ago. Altman's discovery of the Marker led his religion to grow faster than any other religion ever formed on Earth. Altman was mysteriously assassinated by the government to silence the truth, and became a martyr figure to the religion's believers. The government is presumed to have killed him in an attempt to silence the truth about the Marker's true origins. In reality the government had him killed by a Necromorph to martyr him so that they could create this new religion with him as a martyr figure. The Black Marker is revered by Unitologists as an immensely powerful holy object which God has sent to show that death was not the end. Various tests on the Marker led to it being reverse engineered, and the result was the Red Marker. This information was saved by Harmon, who recorded it and brought it with him when he and Altman escaped from the sinking platform that contained the Black Marker and a horde of necromorphs.Dead Space, Unitology Article The Black Marker's influence is similar to the Red Marker's. It was revealed in Dead Space: Martyr that there is a different force surrounding the Black Marker than just the ability to cause madness in humans. There are other forces at play. Altman thought that there was something in the human mind that caused the hallucinations; a kind of defense mechanism that is activated when in the Marker's presence. Altman was not immune, but he was able to resist the madness caused by it. It is also possible and very likely that in all of these cases there are actually two forces working on people's minds. This is shown when many people in Dead Space: Martyr claim to hear two voices. One of these voices tell the people to kill themselves, presumably the Necromorphs. The other appears to be the Marker which tries to protect people from the Necromorphs by telling them to run, or in the case of Isaac and the Red Marker, manipulating them to help the Marker stop the Necromorphs. Its existence had been known to the locals that lived near its resting place for generations, but was never spoken about to outsiders and was referred to as the "The Tail of the Devil". The locals tend to cross their index and middle fingers when speaking of it.Dead Space: Martyr The Black Marker was classified government property and, although Unitologists worshipped it, they only appear to have had pictures and possibly the leaked vidlog from Altman. As most data was classified, their conjectures and the spun comments of the dead scientist Altman caused irrational, hysterical ideas about the Marker to gain momentum and the Unitology religion offering vague promises of hope for immortality, with apparent scientific credibility, excited many previously purposeless and depressed people in the dry and impoverished world, who became fanatics. The Church, of course, always wanted to get its hands on the Marker (which was the reason they were so excited by the Marker found on Aegis VII), though they seem to have had access to the Marker prior to the events of Dead Space, suggesting they had agents in the government. The symbols on both of the Markers apparently represent DNA, and the double helix structure of the marker itself is a clue to this. However the signal it broadcasts is different than what it says on the Markers themselves and what the people write that are affected by the Marker. It is possible that each of these different sequences is for a different Necromorph. Trivia * The Black Marker was completely unaffected when the piece was taken from it, however it seemed to "think" it wouldn't be because it made one of the people, on the submarine taking the piece, go insane and kill both himself and his partner and write symbols all over the walls with their blood. * The piece that Michael Altman owned was used by Harmon in combination with the information saved from the sinking platform that contained the Black Marker to make the Red Marker. The Red Marker is red instead of black because they had to substitute the main material. It is safe to say that each of these are separate entities but they seem to have the exact same effect on people. * The Red Marker appears to be the color red because the element Bismuth was used to replace certain elements present in the duplication of the Black Marker. * The various Markers have conceptual as well as some physical resemblance to the Monoliths from the Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke, who also served as the inspiration for Isaac Clarke's surname. * The Chicxulub crater is a real life crater. True to its location in the book, it is the crater caused by the asteroid impact that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs. In the book, the Black Marker was carried by the asteroid that hit Earth 65 million years ago. Gallery File:Marker.png|Emblem of the Black Marker, as seen on promotional Unitology posters File:Isaac_with_the_unknown_RIG.jpg|Monuments resembling the Black Marker in a Unitology church, as seen in Dead Space 2 Sources Category:Markers